For a client I’m working with, we recruited an anthropologist to help us segment prospective target constituencies for a business that deals with world cultures. In the course of discussions with this anthropologist I was introduced to the term ‘technodispositions’. As I understood it, this is an assessment of a group’s/culture’s likelihood to use technology. It combines three avenues of inquiry:
Do they have the means? – That is the availability of the technology and the means (access, distribution, financial wherewithal, etc.) to engage with the technology?
Do they see/value the utility? – That is, do they understand and place value in the use of the technology and the solution/service it provides?
Do they demonstrate willingness? – That is, have they proven by actions that they engage with technologies when warranted. In short, that they are adopters of technology.
This idea had me wondering how often those concerned with building businesses around social media consider the technodispositions of their targeted constituencies. Sure, the plays for Millennials might be a little easier to guess at because they are known to have the means, see the utility and demonstrate the willingness. But what about soccer moms or retirees? Should their social media experiences have the same functionality, navigational structures and architecture as Millennials? Should it be assumed that soccer moms want to meet new people? Does enlarging the font on every page customize an experience to Seniors? Are contextual maps understood and appreciated by Joe The Plumber in Dubuque?
Numerous studies point out the vast disparities in how different socio-economic groups or ethnic communities engage with family, relationships, community, etc. It only stands to reason that social media would be impacted by this. Yet so many niche communites online share very similar functionality or imply significant assumptions in how they present navigation, informational hierarchy etc. Related, often times something new that works for one community is ported in whole to another and thrust upon them without much thought as to whether it is relevant, warranted or welcomes.
In the discussions I have, blogs I read and articles I find, it seems to me a lot of time is spent on the ‘technology’half of social technologies and not enough is spent on the ‘social’part. My suspicion is that the study of socialization (including technodispositions) probably far more enlightening as a predictor of which businesses will win out in the end.
By my observation, a lot of social media’s success stories have been happy accidents. Wouldn’t it be nice to plan for success rather than putting a new application out there and hoping something cares enough to use it?
In your penultimate paragraph, you wrote that a lot of time is spent on the ‘technology’and not enough is spent on the ‘social’part. I suspect you meant in the thinking at the design end, but I first read it as about the user end. Just my own experiences, perhaps, but because social network designers tend to write and design everything in their own particular jargon-laden idiom, I find that I spend more time trying to figure out how things work and what the words mean (and the applications actually do) then I do “networking” or ‘being social.” It’s annoying, frankly. Equally annoying is that on certain sites, once I’ve gotten a basic grasp of the technology, it turns out that the answer to “what’s this do?” is “not much.”
Actually, I was referring to the study of communities and what facilitates social groupings (online or off). That said, I do agree that a lot of online interface design is rooted in a computer-science logic that is not always reflective of how ‘normal people’(no slight to my developer friends) interact with the world. It has struck me on more than one occasion that as engineers add more functionality to almost everything (microwaves, cell phones, DVD players, cars, etc.) what people really want is a thinner owner’s manual. My mentor back in college gave me a single piece of advice that still serves well, “Say something smart simply.” Golden words, those.